Perfect Eva
by TheLadySong
Summary: Three days after the season finale. Max and Logan try to cope with the hand fate has dealt them, and Max makes an unusual ally. The title hasn't come into play yet.
1. Quiet Contemplation

Quiet Contemplation  
  
Wind gusted across the roof as Logan sat in contemplation. He shut his eyes against the contrary winds that blew behind the lenses of his glasses. He swallowed. Swallowing hurt. Everything hurt, now. Breathing, feeling air on his skin. All he felt was like a bruise had lain across his skin and settled in to stay.  
  
Three days. Was it really three days? Maybe four. Time blended. He didn't really pay attention. Three days seemed so much safer than four, seemed a way of huddling up against a tidal wave, so close you don't have to stop and contemplate its immensity. Three days that she'd been gone.  
  
Three days of hell.  
  
Three days of wondering. Three days of trying to live when he knew she wasn't.  
  
A trembling smile turned the corners of his mouth. So close. There and gone. Washed away like a willow-the-wisp without a glance backwards.  
  
Logan tried. Tried to ignore the horrible memory of blood, the horrible closeness of death. All that he concentrated on now was all the beauty that could be wrought from the memory. The cool feel of the skin of her neck when he raised her head; the feel of the strands of hair falling through his fingers.  
  
Then Lydecker, then pain. 


	2. Harsh Reality

Harsh Reality  
  
The second time Max woke, she immediately wished she hadn't. The harsh synthetic straps chafed at her wrists. Pain went through her chest, but it seemed petty, insignificant; it was mere candleflame compared to the inferno of fury within her.  
  
Real homecoming, it was. Max never spared a thought to anything but her anger, her hate, but the irony was there all the same. What use for her now? To make more, more little camoflague-clad perfect soldiers running through the woods oblivious to all but the words on a classroom screen? Duty. Discipline. Mission. A farce that was so easily betrayed by the man who created it. Betrayed by the man with a vision, and the moment that vision was questioned, he sent it up in smoke.  
  
What for her now? A fate similar to Brin, perhaps? she was the last one compassionate to Brin anymore. Maybe once they brainwashed her, Zack could kill her just as easily as he would kill-  
  
-himself.  
  
Harsh reality poured home. Zack was gone. Buried. For good. all that was left now was a mass of muscle and tissue the size of a first, living away, its foreign flesh beating her blood.  
  
Blood that cried his revenge. 


	3. Family

Family  
  
The door creaked open. Max looked up as best her restraints allowed her. It was a solemn looking X7, carrying a try. Max blinked at the farmiliar face, farmiliar like the one that had shot her was.  
  
"Eva."  
  
She managed to whisper it, to force it past the sudden closing of her throat. The X7 didn't even glance at her. She set down the tray and took a control- she had carried it in, hadn't she? - to elevate the upper part of Max's bed.  
  
Max took a look at her hands, bound in restrains. "Don't tell me you're going to spoon feed me." Her old attitude was back, and it seemed easier now, somehow, remembering that Eva was dead, this was just a recreation. The Eva- or perhaps NeoEva, she should be called, New Eva, undid the restraints on Max's hands. Now she could eat. Frowning, Max pointed to the NeoEva's one hand. It was misformed, the two fingers on the hand shorter and thicker than ordinary, though the thumb was normal, They looked natural on the smaller wrist and hand. The inside of the hand was riddled with surgery scars, skin grafts, there was no outside scar. There had never been any other fingers. Birth defect, Max thought. Damaged goods.  
  
She saw it, now. This new Eva - the people in charge knew that Max most likely thought of Eva still as a ten-year-old, so they sent in this child. A faithful rectreaion minus one small blooper. Plus, even though this Eva was of Manticore technology, she was still damaged goods. There was no denying the fact that if Max decided to kill her anyway, it would be less of a loss. "What happened?"  
  
The NeoEva pursed her lips and looked away. Such blue eyes. So many Manticore kids were asian, latin, african, so eyes like Eva's were rare. Long eyelashes, too. What would she look like when she grew up?  
  
NeoEva didn't answer. Max tried again. "What's your name?" then immediately was struck by two thoughts: one: of course her name is eva. two. of course it isn't Eva. They gave her a different name.  
  
NeoEva shook her head a litle, as if to clear her head over surprise that Max had spoken. In a quavering voice she answered, "Eva."  
  
That surprised Max a little; she had figured that different groups would have different names. She swallowed a little. "Eva, do you know what's going on here?"  
  
Eva looked at her, a little curious. Almost like she had never thought Max could speak, even after the last question. She was different. Most of the children, the Eva of her memories- had blank eyes. They knew what they were doing, going, but never questioned a thing. The last time she had seen that look, or anything even close, had been just before the escape. Desperation in those eyes, in Zack's, and then- inspiration, thought. Intelligence.  
  
"You're a traitor. You destroyed us."  
  
This sent Max's mind reeling a little. "How did I destroy you?"  
  
Eva shook her head. "You destroyed yourself, and me, and the group. You and the other traitors. You betrayed the group, and you got caught."  
  
Good old Manticore rhetoric, Max thought. She pursed her lips a lttle, but didn't say them. The whisper of them on her lips was all that was needed. The whisper began to fade when she slowly smiled. "So what are they going to do to me for betraying the group?"  
  
"I don't know." Eva seemed to remember she shouldn't be talking so easily, that words were locked tight in the lips of her comerades, jealously guarded. She should be one of the group, stoic, silent. "Eat first."  
  
Max slowly ate, eyes locked on Eva. Stew, regular fare. She didn't ponder the need for food, though she felt a little faint and the wound in her chest was feeling weird. When she moved to eat, she could feel one side of the wound move against the other, The sensation was odd, and Max didn't know if she could put up much of a fight with this distracting her. Once she had finished, she looked down at her tray- where had the food gone?- and looked back up at Eva. "Now what?"  
  
Eva silently went to the locked cabinet on Max's left. She was close, and Max could have grabbed her. Eva was aware to the danger, and as one hand took out the items she was looking for, the other clutched a baton on a lower shelf.  
  
At length Eva pulled out a uniform. "Put this on, and then you'll see." Before Max could answer, Eva pulled off the top part of Max's hospital gown.  
  
"Hey, thanks, but I can mange on my own," Max told her, pushing her hands away.  
  
Eva oushed Max's own hand away. "A soldier should trust a fellow soldier and not be afraid of their comerade."  
  
For some reason this reminded Max of Zack, who so often spouted Manticore theory. Max let her hands drop and let Eva dress her.  
  
It was a uniform, a green soldier's uniform. Max could remember, as a child, on a mission in the woods surrounding Manticore, they had glimpsed the X1 group in the distance. They had been marching, dressed in these uniforms, a little older than Max was now. The girls had long hair, tucked into buns, and the boy's hair was longer, naturally so. She had paused a minute to look, perchance to dream, Ben being the only other who stopped to look. Zack bumped them both on the shoulder and they had turned to find Lydecker glaring at them. For the rest of her time at Manticore, Max's goal was that green uniform, the strength of the X1s.  
  
Now all the green uniform was anymore was a cage. It bound her better than the chains and shackles Eva put on as she stood in thought. It meant they were going to make her stay. 


End file.
